StorySpotting: Princess in the crypt (The Witcher)

StorySpotting is a weekly or kinda-weekly series about folktales, tropes, references, and story motifs that pop up in popular media, from TV shows to video games. Topics are random, depending on what I have watched/played/read recently. Also, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. Be warned!

Where was the story spotted?

The Witcher, season 1, episode 3 (Betrayer Moon)

What happens?

Pic from here

A cursed princess is turned into a striga, a terrible monster that kills people. In order to break the curse on her, Geralt has to keep her out of her coffin until the rooster crows three times in the morning. At the end of a long and brutal fight all night, he locks himself in the princess' sarcophagus, and thus keeps her out until the light of dawn. When the finally emerges, he finds a transformed princess lying naked on the floor.

What's the story?

Let's skip over the striga folklore, because that is a whole different can of worms. The rest of this plot is pretty well known to storytellers around the world: it's a folktale type known as ATU 307, The Princess in the Coffin.

The basic story is pretty much always the same: a cursed princess crawls out of her coffin/crypt every night and kills people. Whoever wants to break the curse has to avoid being killed for three nights in a row. A young and brave soldier receives life-saving advice from an old man (in exchange for half of his bounty), and survives two nights. On the third night he locks himself in the princess' coffin, and waits until morning, thus breaking the curse, and setting her free. In some versions he marries her; in others, he gets paid in coin.
In some versions the old man who helps the young soldier is a grateful dead person himself. In some versions, as promised, they split the princess in half. (But then they put her back together).

This story is very popular in the Hungarian tradition, I have blogged about it before. You can read a Danish version (The princess in the chest) here, a French version (Jean of Bordeaux) here, a Spanish one (La hija enterrada) here, a Polish-American version (The bewitched princess) here, and a Roma version (The three girls) here. It also exists (and is listed in the ATU catalog) in most of the Baltic countries, the Netherlands, German-speaking countries, all around the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and Russia.

Fun fact: This folktale type is often attached to the end of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. After they are found out, in many variants the princesses are executed for sneaking out at night to do witchcraft. Their corpses are buried, and then they start coming back for revenge, until someone breaks the curse.

Conclusion

This story has been a part of my repertoire for a long time (you can watch me tell it in English here). It makes excellent Halloween telling, and teenagers love it. I was thrilled to recognize it in the show.

Kindness against darkness: Halloween folktales of caring

I like Halloween stories that go beyond mere fright. Maybe because I used to be an anxious child, and jump tales made me cringe in advance; maybe because I never liked horror for horror's sake. When I started developing a Halloween repertoire as a storyteller visiting the USA, I was drawn towards stories that were less about the creatures of darkness, and more about how we face them.


This year, since the world is increasingly full of darkness anyway, I decided to post a selection of stories where scary things are balanced out with kindness and understanding. So, here is my Top 5.

The black kitty
W. B. McCarthy: Cinderella in America (University Press of Mississippi, 2007.)
Polish-American folktale about a boy who is believed to be simple by his brothers, and yet he ends up breaking a curse on a castle and its residents. He does so by hugging a black kitten (an enchanted princess named Katie), and whispering "my kitty, my black kitty" even when dragons, storms, ghosts, and devils descend on the castle to scare him.

The wee little tyke
Ruth L. Tongue: Forgotten folk-tales of the English counties (Routledge, 1970.)
A girl finds a small black stray dog, and takes him home. The entirely family is cursed by a witch, and the home is a horrible place; cow doesn't give milk, hens don't lay eggs, etc. The wee little dog breaks the curses one by one, and chases the witch away. The family decides to adopt the pup, despite his heartbreaking worries: "But... I'm small!" "But you have sharp teeth!" "But... I'm black!" "So is our cat!"

(Bonus: These two tales can also be used to encourage people to get over their superstitions about adopting black pets.)

The skull
Ruth Manning-Sanders: A book of ghosts and goblins (Dutton, 1969.)
Folktale from Tirol. An orphan girl runs away from her cousin's, and comes across a castle in the woods. The castle is inhabited by a woman's skull that she makes friends with despite all the eerie things going on around it. At night, the girl hugs the skull and holds on to it even when the headless skeleton of an evil man tries to tear it away from her. Her bravery and caring breaks the curse on the woman's ghost, and the girl inherits the castle.

Drinking companions
Pu Songling: Strange stories from a Chinese studio (London, 1880.)
Chinese story of possible traditional origins. A fisherman makes friends with a mysterious person who turns out to be the ghost of a drowned man. After a long time of sharing drinks every night, the ghost tells him that the next person to drown in the river is about to take his place. But when the next person turns out to be a mother and child, the ghost saves them, extending his own time in limbo. As a reward, he is assigned to be a minor deity in a nearby village, and continues his friendship with the fisherman. 
My storytelling mentor, Cathryn Fairlee, has a lovely version of this story that features husband and wife.

The count and the servant
(Source in Hungarian)
Hungarian folktale. A count dies, but his ghost haunts the family home every night. A servant who loved him while he was alive decides to find out why his master can't rest in peace. He pretends to be a ghost as well, and spends the night haunting and talking together with the count's ghost. The count confesses that he has hidden treasure that he wanted to leave to his family. When the servant helps him uncover the treasure, the ghost thanks him, and goes to his eternal rest.
I heard Heather Forest tell this one in Jonesborough once.

Have a great Halloween, everyone!

Scary Story Festival at a haunted opera house, and other Halloween fun

This year I really managed to cherry-pick the best Halloween gigs.

It all started on Friday, when I participated in the Friday Folklore Tour at the Wood County Historical Museum in Bowling Green. The tour had several stops, all centered on creepy and eerie things, such as a Day of the Dead educational display, a haunted trail, the former asylum, a magician... and yours truly, who set up shop in the cemetery behind the museum. And by "set up shop" I mean I camped out all alone in a dark cemetery in the company of a lantern, some blankets, and a box of Halloween chocolates (because someone trusted me to be a responsible adult and not fish all the Reese's out) (I did not fish all the Reese's out).
Over the course of three hours, we had 9 tour groups passing through. I told one story to each of them; because I would have bored myself by repeating one of them over and over again, I ended up randomly rotating 5 different stories, depending on what I felt like telling, and who was in the audience. I told a Hungarian folktale about a brave princess and a haunted castle (our version of Mr. Fox) mostly when kids were around; one girl still stood with her hands over her ears until I promised her that there would be no jump scares in the story (I hate jump scares). One little boy told me that princesses were booooooring - but took it back at the end of the story. My favorite part was when I asked a group what happens to fairy tale princesses when they grow up - and one little girl immediately answered "They become queen!" Girl power.
Next to the magic castle, I also told Princess in the Coffin, and all-time favorite of mine, as well as the Burning of Tara (it's almost Samhain, after all), and the legend of Erzsébet Báthory. I also handed out candy (or rather, held the box out and let people take a handful, because I'm Hungarian and I don't know how to trick-or-treat). All in all, it was great fun, the cemetery setting was perfect, and the groups were all very appreciative. Someone even asked me about how they can become a storyteller...

The Halloween roll continued on Saturday, when I took a trip to Howell, MI to their tenth (!) annual Scary Story Festival. The event takes place in Howell's very own haunted opera house, which is a perfect setting for scary stories. They have a children's scary story show at 7, and then an adult one at 9. I only caught the end of the kids' show, but it looked like it was great fun.
The adult performance took place in the actual opera house (which was built in the 1880s, shut down in the 1920s, and functioned as the attic of the building for several decades). It was an amazing setting, all gloomy and mysterious, decorated with spiderwebs and candles. The floors creaked, the shadows stretched, and there was coffee, hot cider, and pastries available to make everything perfect.
And, of course, there was the lineup.
The show was opened by Robin Nott, who sung us the ballad of Resurrection Mary (a version of the Vanishing Hitchhiker), and then told a story about the ghost of a mother who returned from the grave to feed her child. Both were sufficiently eerie, and touching at the same time. Next, Leif Larsen told us his version of Grimm's Bearskin, set after the American Civil War (I really loved this twist on the tale). Yvonne Healy brought us a terrifying Irish tale of dark magic and revenge, and Jeff Doyle told a Kentucky ghost tale that sent shivers down our spine.

After a short break, Barbara Schutzgruber graced us with singing Childe's ballad of the dead lover (fittingly, the oldest known version of the Vanishing Hitchhiker), and then telling her amazing, rhyming and eloquent version of an English lullaby about a vain lady who turned into the first mole. I am always amazed by Barbara's elegant performances... it was a tough act to follow. I told next; I chose the Princess in the Coffin, since it is a fairly creepy story but also has some humor in it, and it is tons of fun to tell, especially in an eerie setting. The concert concluded with Steve Daut's twist on Rapunzel, with some very graphic and gory images about what could go wrong when one gets tangled in so much hair...

The festival was a superb experience, and a perfect place for some Halloween storytelling. I am happy that I got to be a part of it this year. We did not encounter Meredith, the opera house's resident ghost, but I am sure she was listening...

Fright Hike in the woods = Halloween done right

I was an NPC for Halloween.

The Rieck Center, a nature preserve belonging to the University of Findlay, organized a Fright Hike on Halloween night as a charity event for Syrian refugees. They were recruiting volunteer storytellers, and since I did not have a program for Halloween yet, I was more than happy to participate.
It was a fun night.

The event took place in the forest around the center; there were four stations with four storytellers. Every fifteen minutes, they sent out a group of ten visitors from the building, guided by volunteers to minimize the number of people lost forever in the shrubbery. Each storytelling station was lit by a torch, except for mine, which had a full, blazing campfire going with logs around it. I was grateful for this, because I am a lizard, and despite the balmy night temperature I was wearing five different layers of clothing (one of them was a Jack Frost hoodie).
It was very mood-appropriate to be out in the forest at night. There were no lights near or far other than the campfire; the trees whispered, the pond made splashing noises, and the laughter and screams of people echoed around in the darkness. It was a great setting for telling some chilling tales. In-between groups, sitting by the fire with the two guys accompanying me, I imagined myself as an adventurer in a story, spending a night in the deep, dark woods... however, I soon realized, that sitting by a fire, waiting for a bunch of people to show up and ask for a story doesn't exactly make anyone an adventurer. It makes them an NPC.
Oh well.
Either-or, the event was great fun. We had five groups come through (and a lot more people than we expected). I told the Burning of Tara (I always feel like I must tell that story at least once on Halloween), the Princess in the Shroud, and Marie Jolie (this latter two I told twice each). I had great fun, telling these tales by the fire (as all tales should be told), and the audiences seemed to appreciate them too - even when it started raining.
I followed the last group through the rest of the hike. At the other stations people told the tale of Teig O'Kane and the Corpse, Hoichi the Earless, and Bloody Mary. By the time we all made it back to the center, it was raining pretty hard, so we resorted to eating raw s'mores like a bunch of savages. Also, there was cider.

It was a great Halloween event, at the perfect intersection of excited people, good stories, and a spooky atmosphere. I hope they will do it again next year!

Fear and Trembling in Ancient Rome

One of my favorite summer gigs is camp at my former grade school. They invite me over every year for campfire storytelling (which is how storytelling really should be done).
This year, their theme for the week was time travel, and Tuesday evening fell on Ancient Greece and Rome. This is, for all intents and purposes, my home turf, so I was super excited; on top of that, they wanted me to tell scary stories, to create the whole traditional campfire experience.
I don't think they knew what they were asking when they told me "the scarier, the better."

I selected stories from my repertoire, including Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and the odd barbarian or two. I included Petronius' werewolf, Pliny the Younger's haunted house, the Nart skeleton story, and some darker pieces of Greek mythology. Since the organizers specifically asked for a mummy story to prepare the kids for the nighttime "bravery game," I also brushed up on Lord Hamon's case with the Mummy's Hand.
I arrived to the camp around 9 pm, dressed in full Roman garb (I love dressing up for storytelling; it's not really a character thing, but it does get me in the right mindset). The kids, almost 70 of them between the ages of roughly 8 and 14, eyed me from a safe distance; some of the boys demanded to know what I was. When I told them I was the storyteller, they frowned, and informed me that they thought storytelling was boring. I told them I was sorry, since according to camp rules they would have to sit through the horror tales anyway. The word "horror" worked like magic. It's the Achilles heel of middle school apathy.
For the next half hour or so I was surrounded by a swarm of kids, all talking at the same time. They wanted to know what stories I was going to tell, and whether they were going to be really, truly, really seriously VERY scary. I told them they could take their pick from werewolves, ghosts, mummies and dead people, and that choice occupied them for a good while. We also had a conversation about scary movies, video games, the Hunger Games, and superheroes, and by the time I got around to the campfire, one of the boys sat down at my feet muttering "finally somebody normal."

The stories were told in-between some performances by the kids. I decided to start with less scary ones, since the sun was just setting, and work my way up as it got darker. First I told the myth of Mestra, Odysseus' grandmother, and the evil king that ate himself. It is not very scary and only moderately gory, but it has a great mood, and also superpowers (it is included in my book under Shapeshifting). In the second slot I was asked to do something "scarier" at popular demand, preferably featuring werewolves, so I switched gears from Rome to Vikings, and told a child-friendly version of Sigmund and Sinfjötli (yes, there is such a thing as child-friendly gore). During the following break, I started getting signals that I had hit the kids' limit of "scary" sooner than I expected - a little girl asked me to not do anything "scarier than these," and a boy confessed that he might have nightmares if I tell about ghosts. Now, the mummy story I planned is not only allegedly a true event, but it is also truly terrifying - I was pretty sure it would max out the "they won't sleep for days" category, which might cause trouble for the camp leaders.
With that in mind, I made a judgment call. I told the kids that some people are scared of things, and others are scared of others; I didn't want to tell something horrible and make anyone feel bad. Instead I offered to tell them an adventure tale that just happened to be about Fear. I could see the shier kids relax, and the louder ones settled for adventure instead of horror.
I told the Red Lion, and it worked like a charm as usual. After the story, several kids came up to me to talk, and I stayed around for a while as the campfire died down and the leaders set up for the nighttime game. Some kids wanted to know if the stories were true; I talked to them about why people tell stories, and what we can learn from each. Some of them still demanded 'scarier' tales, but the telling time had passed; we had a conversation about dragons instead.

All in all, it was a fun gig, even if it didn't go quite the way I planned. I think the concept of "scary" stories meant something else for the leaders than what I had in my repertoire - I don't do jump tales at all. I am not a horror person, but if I go Halloween, I go for the chills.

Yes, Grimm fairy tales are dark, and we like them that way

News about a new edition of the Grimm fairy tales have been circling the Internet and popping up consistently on my Facebook wall. Headlines include:

Grimm Brothers' fairy tales have blood and horror restored to them in new translation (The Guardian)

New Translation of Grimm's Fairy Tales Restores the Gore and Horror (io9)

First Edition of all the Original Grimm's Fairy Tales will leave in all the gnarly parts (The Mary Sue)

Too Grimm for Disney: Original editions of classic fairy tales offer darker side of Brothers Grimm stories - including self-mutilation in Cinderella and Rapunzel getting pregnant in her tower (The Daily Mail Online)

These Grimm fairy tales are not for the kiddies (USA Today)

Brothers Grimm: Fairy tales restored & there are no "happy endings" (Hollywood Life)

So, what's up with all of this? Are we excited? Yes.
Is this good news? Yes.
DID YOU KNOW THAT IN CINDERELLA...
YES, I KNEW.

Professional storytellers generally know. We might not always be allowed to tell the stories that way (especially in the USA), but trust me, we know. It's really the only party trick a storyteller has: "Did you know that Rapunzel originally gets pregnant in the tower?" "Did you know that Cinderella's sisters cut their toes and heels off to fit the shoe?" "Did you know that Snow White is strangled, stabbed in the head, and then poisoned?"
Yes, yes, and yes.

When I was little, back in Hungary, I had picture books that told the stories that way, and no one thought about it twice. I went to puppet shows where they poured red glitter out of the stepsisters' shoes to indicate the dripping blood. The firs time I saw the Disney version of some of these tales I was not entirely sure what the heck was up with them.

So, what is the fuss exactly about? Why is all the media talking about the new edition? And, most of all, what I am trying to prove here?

It's not about the stories. The Grimm tales are dark, and they have been known to be dark for a long time. I mean, who ever thought that The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a cheerful, goofy children's story? (Apparently every children's book illustrator ever). The news is not the fact that Grimm is dark. The news is that people are excited about this.

Stories can use some darkness. They don't hurt children. I (like most kids in Europe) knew the original versions when I was little, and I turned out fine (and a storyteller). And yet, these versions are regarded as something strange and new and sensational. If you work in education or entertainment, you know why. Every storyteller could talk to you for hours about parents and teachers (but never kids!) complaining about a story being "too dark" or "too gory" just because the villain dies in the end. Stories get censored left and right. What, it is okay to murder Snow White once, but not three times? (The dwarves manage to save her the first two times, in case you were wondering). Is it okay for Rapunzel to be sold by her mother and thrown from a tower, but pregnancy is a taboo?

Yes, the Grimm tales are dark, and you know what else? It's not just Grimm, either. A 17th century Italian version of Sleeping Beauty gets raped in her sleep and wakes up when she gives birth to twins. The original Red Riding Hood is torn apart and devoured by a wolf. A Swiss version of Snow White is a girl forced into slave labor by seven bandits. The ancient Greek Cinderella is a prostitute. The Hungarian Dancing Princesses don't wait for their suitors to fall asleep - they poison them dead and then go to a witches' Sabbath. I could go on.

Shiny, happy, kid-friendly tales are a product of 19th century romantic ideals of childhood. They are not the norm. Grim(m) was the norm. And some of them were never intended for children. And now while we are talking about it, hopefully we will take another look at what these stories tell us about human nature, and to what extent they need or don't need to be censored.
We might want to talk about what the villain's death means to children listening to a tale. We may want to talk about what Rapunzel can tell us about the need for sex education. We might have a discussion about Cinderella's sisters and the body image of young girls. We might talk about Sleeping Beauty and issues of consent. We might even venture to discuss Snow White and the question of taking authority figures' words at face value. And why stop there? Maybe we will even talk about censorship in other media.

Did you know that...? Yes. I did. And I am glad I do.